


We Three

by aurumstar (shieldivarius)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Elidibus and Lahabrea are there too, End of Days, F/M, Female Azem, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Prompt Fill, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27568123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/aurumstar
Summary: He froze, again, mid-step.For Emet-Selch saw nothing. Not the glow of life hiding in the wreckage of buildings as he’d hoped to see. Not even the spinning of the deceased as they returned to the life stream.Nothing.Not the life of the star. Not the soul of even the elementals at the heart of the roaring fires.Nothing.Originally written for the Whumptober 2020 prompt "isolation."
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch
Kudos: 11





	We Three

In the wake of the blistering clash of deific aethers, a hush had fallen over the wreckage of Amaurot. 

Emet-Selch’s legs shook as he clawed his way to his feet, supporting himself with the crumbling balustrade that had once been the border of the great, scenic boulevard of the Macarenses Angle. The boulevard was no more; it had fallen away into the great maw of a pit, black and bottomless with plumes of smoke billowing up from within. He clung to the wall, pressed against what remained of it and crab walked his way across the loose rubble along the narrow ledge that remained between the pit and the railing.

Acrid smoke clogged the air, burned his nostrils and the back of his throat. It stung his eyes and he squinted through the eye holes of his mask, through the tears building from the relentless irritation. They itched, horribly, but he didn’t dare let go of his grip on the wall lest he lose his balance and tumble to his death.

Near blind by the time he cleared the danger of the pit, Emet-Selch collapsed to his knees on a safe patch of grass—somehow free of the scorching of the earth around it—and knocked his mask askew in his need to rub at his eyes and get relief. He scrubbed his cheeks of the tracks that escaped tears had left there, pressed the heels of his palms to still-aching eyes and knelt there a moment. Catching his breath, regaining his composure, taking comfort in the darkness of the backs of his eyelids as though when he looked at the world again everything would be back to the way it had been. Magically mended.

The world fell away as he sat there, frozen still, and when he finally blinked open his eyes again the sky had brightened, the shadows moved, and a new chunk of wreckage lay next to him. He recoiled from it, brushed stone-dust with haste from where it had settled on his robes, and pulled himself to his feet. He’d lost time—a few hours?—and was lucky he hadn’t been crushed. Out in the open wasn’t safe.

With wild swivelling of his head he oriented himself and staggered on aching, bruised legs toward the Bureau of the Architect. Not another soul was on the streets, and the screaming that had made up the background of the din for weeks had blessedly stopped—but he’d grown accustomed to it, and with nary a sound to suggest otherwise, he felt as though he could be the only person left in Amaurot.

Surely they’d holed up somewhere safer, gotten off the streets where falling debris and shifting soils created impossible-to-predict hazards.

But when he finally managed to haul himself up the front stairs and into the foyer of the bureau, he found it just as deserted, just as desolate as the streets outside.

Strength gone again, chest heaving for breath as his lungs tried to keep up with the exertion and burned through the amount of smoke he’d inhaled, Emet-Selch leaned against the wall just inside the doorway. Then slid down, laid his head back against the wall, and closed his eyes. A moment’s rest, that was all he needed, and then he could start the search again. The Convocation offices next. Surely his peers would be there, would know what had happened.

And they could start a plan to fix _this_ problem, too. Whatever it was. The fighting had stopped, but he couldn’t tell from here if this was a lull or if Lord Zodiark had finally come out on top. 

The silence was a blessed relief, if nothing else, and he lost more time sitting there, trying to regain his bearings, trying to urge himself back to his feet. Something felt wrong, had him unsettled beyond the aches in his body, beyond the wreckage of his city. But Emet-Selch was too exhausted, still too shaken, to get a firm grasp on what it was. 

He hauled himself to his feet again. The Convocation. The Convocation. One of his peers would know. 

Night had fallen by the time Emet-Selch staggered back outside. He’d lost time again. He was losing so much time. And focus. He didn’t have the focus to narrow his aether enough to teleport to the shard within the Convocation’s offices. Instead he was forced to walk, shivering, with his arms crossed across his chest and grateful for the moment that there was no one around to see him struggle. 

Though he’d welcome one… He might not have had the focus to throw himself into the life stream, but his own innate magicks took less attention. And, frankly, it dismayed him that he hadn’t thought to seek out life using senses other than his eyes and ears before now. He blinked, let the sights of the souls of the star into his vision. 

And froze, again, mid-step. 

For Emet-Selch saw nothing. Not the glow of life hiding in the wreckage of buildings as he’d hoped to see. Not even the spinning of the deceased as they returned to the life stream. 

Nothing.

Not the life of the star. Not the soul of even the elementals at the heart of the roaring fires.

And not Lord Zodiark, whose great power had been born of the life and souls of so many Amaurotines, who had been blinding to Emet-Selch’s soul sight. 

Nothing.

He wrenched his eyes open again, felt the vague ache of pain throb through his knees where they’d crashed to the ground again when he fell.

Nothing.

He shook, the chill of the star sinking into his skin, his bones, now that he knew it was more than his own shock. The very aether felt different, lesser, diminished. Something had gone horribly, terribly wrong. Again. 

He tilted his head back, looked at the sky. Foreign stars flickered in gaps in the plumes of smoke. 

_“Emet-Selch?”_

He shook his head as his name rang through his ears, bounced off buildings. Hearing things. The last one left in Amaurot and the delusion already starting. Perhaps he’d lost time again, hallucinated the Emissary speaking his name in the depths of his catatonia.

_“Emet-Selch?”_

He scowled at its coming again. Clasped both hands over his ears and tried to block out the sounds of his own insanity. If this was how it had to end then so be it. Left to wander alone and insane through the city he’d loved, on the star they’d thrown away everything to try and save. 

_“Emet-Selch!”_

The voice had come closer and, in spite of himself, Emet-Selch gave into the delusion and looked away from his knees, up from the ground. 

A white robed figure ran toward him, grabbed his arm and helped him to his feet. 

“Eli…dibus?” The name was heavy on his tongue. The Emissary’s aether flowed around him, showed none of the fragmenting, none of the diminishing that the rest of the star did. Emet-Selch leaned heavily against him. In the back of his mind, he vaguely recollected that he’d lost his mask somewhere, that his head was bare of his cowl, that beside the fully robed, masked Elidibus, he was improper. 

With one hand he tugged at his hood, trying at least to raise his cowl back around his face, even if he couldn’t wear his mask. He started to lag, so focused on doing it, and Elidibus knocked his hand away. 

“Do not worry about propriety, my friend. Come.”

“I—”

“Come. You are injured.”

Emet-Selch let himself be led, still leaning heavily on Elidibus, and taking stock of his body to try and find the injury the Emissary claimed he had. All he could feel was numbness and exhaustion, though, and could only take the younger man’s word for it. 

“The others?” he asked as they neared the Convocation building.

Elidibus shook his head, and Emet-Selch couldn’t read whether the response meant that he didn’t know, or that he didn’t want to speak while they were out in the open. Perhaps both. Perhaps neither.

“I must…” Emet-Selch stopped walking, forcing Elidibus to stop as well, and tried to pull away. If the Emissary was here, hale and whole and with his power pulsing around him, then there had to be others. Emet-Selch was merely tired, his exhaustion standing in the way of his having been able to see the truth of the state of things.

“Emet-Selch,” Elidibus repeated. “Please. You are unwell.”

The Convocation offices were near. He supposed they would be as good a place as any to try and regain his bearings and regard the world again through his soul sight. He did, after all, have a good sense of how the city should look from the vantage of his office.

“I apologize. Lead on.”

Elidibus did, and they both opted not to comment on how much support Emet-Selch needed to get his shaking legs up the steep, sweeping staircase that led into the offices. The foyer felt much the same as the foyer at the Bureau of the Architect had—ruinous, cavernous. But another figure awaited them inside. 

“Lahabrea?”

The Speaker spun, and a quick nod of his head, suggested he’d swept Emet-Selch up and down and taken in his wreck of an appearance as Elidibus led him over to sit on a bench against the wall.

“Tell me,” Emet-Selch said. “The others?”

Elidibus shook his head, and this time when he spoke his voice was hushed, as though any louder and his words would escape the protection of the offices. “They’re all… gone. Everyone… is gone.”

Emet-Selch’s head dropped back against the back of the bench and, though he knew it to be true, though Elidibus’s words only confirmed that which he’d already seen for himself, he let his sight fall away to the colours of the aether again. 

Elidibus and Lahabrea, standing so close, glowed in his soul sight.

The rest of the world beyond them was dim and faded. Tears sprang to his eyes and Emet-Selch gasped, blinked the physical world back into focus. His chest heaved as though he’d been running and he trembled again, hands fisted in his robes on his lap as he tried to keep his bearings.

The other men gave him a moment, then two. Then, “What did you see?”

Emet-Selch could only shake his head. What had he seen? How could he put into words the horrific sight of the star’s aether that lay just out of sight to them?

“Take your time.”

“The star is sick. Broken.” He paused, braced himself for the unnerving sight, and let the world fall away again. Vertigo wracked him, but he fought through it, and described for Elidibus and Lahabrea exactly what he saw. They could not make full use of the offices of the Convocation without being fully informed. The life stream was his domain, the domain of the office of Emet-Selch. Souls were his domain.

Even if they were broken and faded.

“The greatest aether left in the city is in this room. We shine brighter than the essence of the star. I cannot see even Lord Zodiark.”

“Venat won.” Lahabrea sounded disgusted. 

Emet-Selch shook his head. “I cannot confirm that.”

“No one won,” Elidibus said. “If the star is fragmented, it is not in balance. If our souls shine brighter than the star, then we must amend the star to again be bright and true.”

He continued, starting to outline a plan to bring back their balance. Emet-Selch half listened, compartmentalizing the work that needed to be done as he searched the streets beyond for a hint of life.

Nothing… Nothing… _There._ The colour familiar, but so faded as to barely exist to his soul sight. Emet-Selch could feel a headache building behind his eyes as he strained to recognize the soul in front of him. 

“Excuse the interruption, Emissary,” Emet-Selch said. “But I believe a civilian has found us.” He pushed himself to his feet, staggered after half a step and had to catch his balance again on the arm of the bench. White-knuckled, senses exerted as far as he could bear, Emet-Selch stared past Elidibus, past Lahabrea, and at the faint pulse of life on the street beyond. 

The Emet-Selch of the days before the calamity—of days before, of last week?—had been able to recognize a soul after merely seeing its colour once. The Emet-Selch of today couldn’t put a name to the colour on the street beyond. Too pale, too faded, like trying to pick out a distant star through a layer of clouds. Impossible.

He continued to strain anyway, let his headache build, utterly refusing to surrender to the pain. Tried to measure the brightness of his fellow Convocation members’ souls against the dimness coming closer, tried to figure out exactly what could have happened to make the soul so diminished. So pale. So washed out.

And in a strike of recognition that buckled his knees and sent him to the floor, grip on the bench be damned, the identity of the soul beyond the doorway became clear.

Impossible…

Someone had hold of his arm, was hauling him back to his feet, trying to get his attention, but beyond that vague awareness Emet-Selch had no sense of his surroundings. The world could be ending again, the sky could be falling down around his ears.

He’d fallen down a pit. He’d been knocked on the head by a broken piece of skyscraper. 

She couldn’t be here. That _spectre_ couldn’t be her.

An impossibility. An _utter_ nightmare.

And even so, he had to know.

“Let me go,” he said, words rough as they rasped from his throat. The supporting hands released him, and Emet-Selch staggered his way to the door. 

“Emet-Selch—”

“Please. Let me do this alone.”

An unidentifiable problem made his gait awkward, set his balance askew, but Emet-Selch dragged himself across the threshold, back into the cloying, heavy smoke of the outside. The outside, where she stood, staring up at the building with her white mask obfuscating her expression, physically unchanged.

But without her aether, diminished. A fragment. If he couldn’t see her standing before him, if his own gifts hadn’t allowed him to look at the metaphysical, he would never have known she was there. To his other senses, his magicks, she was utterly invisible.

“Emet-Selch.” Her voice, still the sweet singing of bells in his ears.

She tilted her head, and, perhaps responding to his own bare face, removed her mask.

“Azem.” _Azem, Azem._

His legs buckled, the shake in his knee and the pain breaking through the fog blanketing his mind and finally getting the better of him, pitching him forward down the stairs. She caught him instants before he hit the hard flagstone, arms tight around his back, across his shoulders.

And because he couldn’t help it, because she hadn’t been this close since before the first summoning, Emet-Selch pressed his face into her neck. 

She didn’t feel real. Even though she was touching him, holding him, supporting him, she didn’t feel real. She could have been anyone. Any civilian from off the street. Any child with hardly any development to their aether.

And he’d never before realized, truly, how very all ensconced by her power he’d been when she was around—until now, when it was gone.

“You were dead.” _You are dead; this is not real._

“I was never dead,” she said, helping him straighten and, once he’d balanced on his bad leg again, helping him to sit down properly on the edge of the stairs. “I left. Dead to you and the Convocation, perhaps.”

“That wasn’t what I…” He cleared his throat. “We extended an olive branch.” _No, we received word that you had been lost._

“I ignored it.”

Emet-Selch scowled at her, seated beside him, but Azem’s attention lay on the wreckage of the burning city around them. Her eyes sparkled, tears beginning in them. 

And still, even with her sitting so close, even though she had touched him, Emet-Selch could feel no power from her.

She could have been a phantom.

“Emet-Selch…” She shook her head. “ _Hades_ , what have you done?”

“This was not my doing. We are just as in the dark as you are.”

The corners of her lips turned down, and she stood. His fingers twitched, wanting to tug at her robes, wanting to tell her to _stay, for once. Stay._

“My magick is gone,” she said. Her voice had turned deadpan. “I have the faintest hint of aether. Enough to know you were here but not until I was so close I could have shouted and had you hear me.”

_A spirit. You are not here._

“Something has happened to the star’s aether,” Emet-Selch said. 

“Something.”

“We will fix it. This, too. We will solve the problem.”

Too quickly, she stepped down the stairs. He had the sense she was about to flee. To vanish utterly. “You _caused_ the problem.”

Emet-Selch tried to call forth the energy to fight with her, to deny it, but like sand through his fingers it waned again, even as his stomach seized and his chest clenched with rage. At her. At Venat. At everyone who had stood in Lord Zodiark’s way and brought about this conclusion.

“We did what we had to do. It would have _worked._ ”

“You threw everything away on a hope and under-tested concept.” Azem shook her head. “But we’ve had this fight, and are well beyond the point at which it could have resulted in fruitful debate.”

She turned back to him, and when she spoke again, her voice was thick and the dim light coming from the still-open doorway to the foyer behind him lit the tear tracks on her cheeks. “I needed to see you. One last time.” She sniffled, and forced a smile so fake it was little better than a projection on her face.

“We will rebuild. We will fix this.” _I will fix_ you. _Even if we three are the last unsundered creatures on this star._

He put his head in his hands as she shook her head again. With his eyes closed, he couldn’t sense her at all. She might as well have vanished. 

“You still fail to understand,” she said, her voice soft. Distant, as though he willed her away simply by refusing to regard her.

“Whatever it takes,” he said into his palms. “Whatever laws need to be rewritten. Whatever needs to be sacrificed. For the greater good. We will fix it.”

“Yes,” Elidibus said.

Emet-Selch looked up, the man’s voice when he’d been expecting a woman’s—expecting hers—catching him off guard. 

The street in front of him was empty, as far as he looked up and down the broken boulevard. Azem… He hadn’t heard her depart.

Perhaps she’d never been there at all.

_A spectre. A phantom on her way to the life stream, visible only to you._

“The star is out of balance. It is left to us to repair it.”

Emet-Selch nodded and allowed himself one more sweep of the street, this time through his soul sight.

Bereft of life. Bereft of souls.

Alone.

He, Elidibus and Lahabrea.

Isolated.

For as long as it took until the star was repaired. 

And that work… That work spread ahead of them, beyond the realms of history and memory. 

Forever.

_We will fix this._


End file.
